The New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg just announced on press conference that our great city of New York will green up with brand new solar panels on some municipal buildings like the City Hall. Mayor Bloomberg has done many great things to help the local and global environment protection and he said that "this is just the next logical step".

This project is supposed to generate two megawatts of solar electricity which equals to cutting down about 290 tonnes of carbon emissions a year. The deal that he is trying to push is that the city will not pay for the installation but will buy electricity from the provider and this will be really big investment for some large solar panels manufacturer as this project will cost approximately few million dollars at least....

One very interesting fact is that New York City is the most energy efficient city in the whole world based on number of people living and the yearly carbon-dioxide emissions. This is mainly due to the vast network of railroads and subways that minimizes the need of Cars and makes quite quick and efficient travels. I live in New York City about five years now and I don't really need car because everything is located so close and even if I have to travel somewhere the subway network is quite faster than going by car. It is well know that if you want to get from one corner of New York City (Manhattan) to the other, it will take you about 3-4 hours to get there by car, and about 30 minutes by Subway. Lets not forget the fact that even if you get to Manhattan somehow, you will have to pay $25 per hour for garage parking because there is virtually no parking spots available on the streets.

Mayor Bloomberg is trying to squeeze in the best of environmentally safe technologies, not only by trying to implement Solar Panels, but also Alternative Fuels that can be used with the existing equipment. By next summer, city buildings will be using a bio-diesel blend for heating oil. The renewable fuel, made from vegetable or animal fats, burn cleaner than standard heating oil.

Also Mayor Bloomberg mentioned that the number of hybrid taxis and buses are growing with each day on the streets of Manhattan as the City Hall is giving large discounts on Hybrid Fueled Transportation Liceneces.